Saint Anthony Mary Claret - Catholic Apologetics Information

in design that I undertook for Early Life business reasons? And, in fact, these skills have been most
useful to me in designing prints for catechisms and works on mysticism.
57. Besides design I studied Castilian and, later, French grammar, but always with an eye to their
usefulness in business and manufacturing.
58. Of all the things I have studied or worked at during my life, I have understood none better than
manufacturing. Apropos of this, in the firm I worked for, there were catalogs of patterns shown at the
yearly displays in Paris and London, and they were kept up-to-date to be in step with the latest
fashions. 38 God gave me such a ready wit in this that all I have to do was analyze any pattern and in short
order a copy would emerge from the loom exact to the last detail, or even with improvements if my
employer so desired.
59. I found copying patterns difficult at first, but by applying myself day and night, both on
workdays and holidays, to study, writing, and designing, I came to be successful at it. I only wish that I
had applied myself as busily to virtue, so that I might have become better than I am. When, after much
thought, I had managed to take a design apart and put it back together, I felt such a sensation of joy and
satisfaction that I would walk back home quite beside myself with contentment. I learned all this without
a teacher. In fact, far from teaching me how to understand patterns and imitate them perfectly, my
instructors in the art actually tried to conceal it from me.
60. One day I told the shop superintendent that the pattern we both had in hand could be worked
out in such and such a manner. He took a pencil and drew a plan of the way the loom should be set up
for the job. I made no comment but told him that if he didn't object, I would study it. I took the pattern
and his sketch for the loom-setting home with me. In a few days I brought him a sketch of the setup
needed to produce the pattern and showed him how the one he had sketched would not have produced
the pattern in question but a different one, which I also showed him. The superintendent was amazed at
my sketches as well as at my reasoning and explanations.
61. From that day forward he held me in high esteem, and on holidays he used to take me with
him on outings with his sons. His friendship, advice, and sound principles were very beneficial to me
because he was not only a well-educated man but also a faithful husband to his wife and a good father to
his children, a good Christian, and a realist both in principle and practice. To tell the truth, some of this
man's advice was very useful for someone like me who had been brought up in a small town like Sallent,
for at that time the very air we breathed was filled with constitutional ideas.
62. With regard to manufacturing, I had become adept not only in design but also in presetting
looms. A number of workers asked me to do them the favor of setting up their looms because they were
not skilled at it. I helped them and they respected and liked me for it.
63. News of the technical ability the Lord had given me spread through Barcelona. This moved
some gentlemen to call on my father to ask him what he thought of our forming a company and starting
our own factory. My father found the idea very attractive, as it would mean growth for his own factory.
He talked with me about it, pointing out the advantages and possible fortune it might bring me.
64. But God's ways are unsearchable, for although I really enjoyed manufacturing and had made
considerable progress in it, I couldn't make up my mind. I felt an inner repugnance for settling down and
also for causing my father to contract any further liabilities on my behalf. I told him that I thought the
time was not ripe, that I was still very young, and that because I was so short of stature, the workers
wouldn't take orders from me. He told me not to be concerned about that because someone else could
handle the workers and I would only be involved in the directorship of the business. I continued to
decline, however, saying that we would consider the matter later but that just now I didn't wish to accept.
My decision proved to be truly providential. This was the first time I had ever opposed my father's plans.
The reason, of course, was that God willed something else for me: He wanted me to be a priest, not a
businessman, although at the time such ideas never entered my head. 39
"Allow me to say frankly but without boasting that when I was a layman in Barcelona, I dedicated myself, among other things, to the
study of design, and on three occasions I received an award from the Board of Trade" (Correspondence, Letter 63).
38 I Claret worked for a manufacturer of cotton textiles, "dels Vigatans," at 10 Carmen Street. More than 100 workers managed the
76 looms. The owner was Ignacio Prat, a native of Vich
39 In Barcelona, Claret's natural vocation was manifested: manufacturing. He had exceptional ability, a strong natural bent,
persistence, and success. But this was not God's final plan for hirn, and although He took him away from the looms, the spirit of work
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